July 27, 2009

Where to Find Best Sources for Your Article or Book

by Pam Baker, veteran freelance journalist

Herd mentality rules from Wall Street to Main Street. Lately, the journo herd has
stampeded towards Helpareporter.com (HARO)
for news sources. But just because HARO is the herd’s favored watering hole,
doesn’t mean it’s the only place you ought to go to drink.

To reach the best sources for your article or book, leverage
all the source services to your advantage. Here’s the lay of the land so you
can map your own path and thus stand out from the herd:

·HARO– a free service for both journalists and PR types, supported
by advertising. Owned/operated by Peter Shankman, a PR guru, found on Twitter
at http://twitter.com/skydiver

Pros: Fast responses, quality
sources. If your deadline is really tight, Peter and crew are great about
Tweeting yoursource needs to a massive
following on Twitter. They also screen members and punish spammers thereby
eliminating “junk” and off-point responses to your queries. Reporter query form
is streamlined and easy to use.

Cons: Responses are generally strong from PR folks, company owners and technology leaders. Short on big name
analyst firms, Fortune 500, political types, celebrities, economic development
groups, and scientific and university sources when compared to other services.
Also, you run the risk of your story idea being stolen as your query is very
public; doubly so when it is tweeted by the crew. However, you are at similar
risk when you tweet for sources yourself or use competing services that also
use Twitter. Also, historically speaking, prime sources will tip their fav
reporters to your story angles on occasion, so this problem is not unique to
HARO.

Pros: A professional librarian will research anything for you, and I
mean anything. This resource makes any freelancer function with all the
strength of a fully staffed newsroom; staff writers suffering from shortages in
news rooms will also highly benefit from this service. A research librarian can
identify leading sources and contact info; complete publishing history of a
subject/industry; deliver stats, numbers of all kinds, clips (video or print)
of previous interviews -- in other words comprehensive info you cannot easily,
if at all, find anywhere else. Looking for contact info of the big names that
shy away from media? The librarian will produce it in minutes. The Library also
has full access to resources journos often cannot afford themselves, such as Nexis, the news half of Lexis Nexis. They
can also direct you to sources that will give you a heads up on news forecasts
(what WILL be news in the future) such as NewsAhead
World News Forecast. Reliable
research material and source info are handed to you on a platter!

Some research services cost an
additional fee. The first 4 research articles are free. After that, it is $2.00
per article. Beth usually does the search and sends a citation list to you.
Then, you can respond with which articles you want the full-text for, thus
controlling the costs to you. There is an hourly charge for extensive research
– such as researching trips to the Library of Congress.

Cons: Other than the fees, not a darn thing. Your queries are
confidential and not shared with other journalists. Beth and her team are a
godsend, simple as that!

Pros: Very strong in several
source types: colleges and universities, corporations, government agencies,
legislative offices, small businesses, nonprofit organizations, hospitals and
medical centers, analysts, authors, speakers, consultants, and, of course, PR
agencies. One of the benefits for reporters using ProfNet is that they can
choose institution type(s) they want to send the query to. If you want to
target just colleges and universities, for example, you can. Reporter query
forms have been recently streamlined making the service easier to use.

Reporters can also search
ProfNet's Experts Database to find experts and communicate with them privately
(via their PR representative). This gives reporters yet another option for
finding experts, without broadcasting their query to the full e-mail subscriber
list. If your deadline is tight, Maria leverages Twitter to speed responses.

Cons: Responses can be slow
although ProfNet has made considerable progress with speeding things up.
Although there is only so much one can do to spur industry heavyweights and
science types. Also, if you ask ProfNet to leverage Twitter to speed responses,
you run the same risks you do with HARO on Twitter. Just depends, you want to
keep your story idea to yourself, or not?

Pros: The information found
here is extraordinary. Five wires are available: SciNews, MedNews, BizNews,
LifeNews, and Daily News. Journalists have access to embargoed news well in
advance of release. This is an awesome advantage as it allows you time to
thoroughly research a topic and yet publish a comprehensive piece on the actual
release date. Offers an extensive contact directory and Find An Expert service
to aid you in your own sourcing needs. A good news library and archive service
enables you to find plenty of background info on a long list of topics.

Cons: To date, I haven’t
found any. The service is limited to serious journalists; it is not sourcing
turf for bloggers, citizen journalists or news aggregators (at least in terms
of embargoed news and access to true experts in any field). Also, your queries are not shared-- nor
visible to-- other journalists.

Why do I share this information
with you? Because I believe, heart and soul, in good journalism and I want to
do everything I can to see the industry weather and prosper despite the current
economic obstacles. Go forth and report – and know that I salute you!